Last week an event of a personal nature occurred that left me in some distress, the upshot being that I lost my appetite. Nothing edible appealed, and when 24 hours had come and gone and still all that I wanted was coffee and a down comforter to crawl under, it struck me that I could turn this situation to advantage by buying some lemons and cayenne pepper and calling it the Lemon Juice Cleanse.
This plan had the dual advantage of parrying inquiries from worried family members and friends as to what in the world was wrong with me ("Nothing!") and probably resulting in the shedding of a few unwanted pounds. On top of which - it was cheap. I already had the most expensive ingredient - Grade B maple syrup, which we buy in gallon jugs every summer when we're up in Vermont. The jugs are lined up in the kitchen next to the ironing board, making us look like hillbilly moonshiners with a still stashed away in the bathtub.
A cursory glance at the websites extolling the Lemon Juice Cleanse revealed that it is better known as the Master Cleanse, which to me sounds unpleasantly like something that might involve high colonics and a whip. I decided that I was going to continue to think of it as the Lemon Juice Cleanse, which is more evocative of Victorian ladies giving their tresses a lemon rinse so they'll be all fragrant and glossy. It also revealed that I wasn't allowed to drink coffee, and that I was supposed to buy laxative tea ("No, and no"); also, that I must insist on organic lemons, organic cayenne pepper, and filtered water, preferably bought - at considerably higher prices than one is generally accustomed to paying for water and cayenne pepper - from the designers of the websites I was consulting.
Being me, I shrugged, drank my two cups of triple-shot-espresso-machine coffee, augmented by healthy, unmeasured glugs of Trader Joe soy creamer, filled up the Pura water dispenser I'd bought at a yard sale, and walked a block to the little Korean vegetable market that sells lemons at 3/$1.00 and two ounce bottles of La Flor cayenne pepper with a little red rose on the label right next to the claim that it's "HOT!" for $2.59.
Which all goes to show you that even when I try to be pure, I don't want to be as pure as all that.
So here we are on Day 5 of No Food, which is also Day 4 of No Food Plus Spicy Lemonade, and thus far, no complaints, except that I'm kind of tired. The lemon concoction, which looks like you've bought pink lemonade from the sidewalk vendor that your mother shooed you away from when you were six because there was pigeon poo on the umbrella and the man who was counting out the change had dirt under all ten of his fingernails, is not unpleasant. It goes down with a hint of burn to the throat and hits the empty stomach with an affable warmth reminiscent of whiskey - not good whiskey, to be sure, but after all, let's remember that I didn't spring for the organic stuff. Since the weather has now taken a turn for COLD again, I'm microwaving my Elixir of Health, which probably destroys the whole shebang even worse than my non-organic transgressions, but again - being me, I don't care. Hot or cold, it's palatable and, for whatever reason, I don't feel hungry.
The most interesting thing, to me, is the reinforcement of what I have always thought of as the American Diet Mystique. According to the Online Webster's, mystique means: 1. an air or attitude of mystery and reverence developing around something or someone 2. the special esoteric skill essential in a calling or activity.
If you suddenly stop eating and say only in explanation, "I have emotional stuff going on, and have, for the time being, lost my appetite; I do not know when it will be back," you will quickly find yourself surrounded by people who want to know what's wrong with you, what your therapist has to say about it, whether you would consider attending a support group for persons with an eating disorder, and whether you've ever heard of Karen Carpenter.
Add some lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne to the mix, however, and suddenly you have dignified your loss of appetite into the Holy Grail of Cleansing. No longer are you a sulker or a poor sport. No longer are you exhorted to "get over it." Instead, you are now an apogee of self-denial, a martyr to mens sana in corpore sano. You have triumphantly surpassed even the Raw Vegan Fruitarians in the "Let's Think Up More Things We Can Refuse to Eat" Olympics. Know what medieval society called people who refused to eat and in consequence got all weird and light-headed and saw visions after a few days? Saints, that's what they called them. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Hey, don't take my word for it. Here's St. Jerome on the subject of "No, thanks, not for me, I've had enough":
Of my food and drink I say nothing: for, even in sickness, the solitaries have nothing but cold water, and to eat one’s food cooked is looked upon as self-indulgence . . . My face was pale and my frame chilled with fasting; yet my mind was burning with desire, and the fires of lust kept bubbling up before me when my flesh was as good as dead . . . Now, if such are the temptations of men who, since their bodies are emaciated with fasting, have only evil thoughts to fear, how must it fare with a girl whose surroundings are those of luxury and ease?
According to St. Jerome, whose description of "a girl whose surroundings are those of luxury and ease" fits me like Rita Hayworth's black satin elbow glove, I can look forward to this lemon juice thing ultimately leading to getting incredibly horny, which will be interesting, to say the least, and I only hope I won't fall over in bed due to weakened limbs and muscle loss when it happens. I should certainly like to know whether this effect was experienced by Beyonce Knowles, and I'm sure others would like to know that, too.
Ms. Knowles, in case you had missed the news, is more or less the poster girl for the Master Cleanse Diet, and pops up on every website that tells you how to mix up the hell-broth; according to her, she stuck it out for 14 days, while everybody around her tortured her by sucking up strands of pasta and telling her to keep it up, she was doing great. Of course, I do not have the same incentive to persevere as Beyonce Knowles, since an invitation to dance onstage in my scanties at the Grammy Awards has been inexplicably absent from my mailbox.
When I mentioned Beyonce's achievement - two weeks on dirty lemonade and laxatives - to my husband, he regarded me evenly, carefully weighing his next words, then said gently, "Well, that's remarkable. But you're not Beyonce."
Which, while entirely true, sent me diving under the covers once again, to sulk another day. It did say on the website that I might have mood swings.
* Title by Cathy Guisewite
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